Page 50 of Robb

“You people really have no idea, do you?”

Robb kept his face expressionless at the jibe, though he was finding it more of a struggle than he would have just a couple of days ago. This whole thing with Tahnee had done a number on his self control, and what would’ve come automatically in the past was now something he had to work at.

Still, the comment was better than what they had been getting from the shark lady until now, which was absolute silence. Maybe this was an opening. Robb was happy to play into a suspect’s contempt to get them to start talking.

Next to him, Callan shrugged affably. “You’ve got us there. I mean, how many agents have we sent to interrogate you so far? Seven? Eight? And you’ve given nothing away. Whoever trained you was pretty good.”

Robb thought Callan was probably laying on the good cop routine a little too thick, but it was the reason why he’d had him flown down from Sydney this morning – they worked well together in these scenarios.

The shark woman clearly wasn’t buying it, however. Her face settled back into a flat, unimpressed stare, and she crossed her arms over her chest, slouching down. Robb knew enough from the hours they’d already spent trying to get her to talk that she wasn’t going to be saying anything any time soon.

They needed a change of tactic. And maybe Callan was picking up on it as well, because he yawned, stretching his arms behind his back and popping his spine, before standing up.

“I think we all need a break,” he said. “Can we get you anything, ma’am? Sandwich? Coffee? Whale carcass?”

The look the shark lady gave him was a pretty clear indication of what she thought of Callan’s attempt at humor.

“No thank you. I think I’ll manage without.”

Standing up as well, Robb gave her one last look before he left the room, Callan close behind.

They watched her for a minute through the one-way mirror, but she didn’t change her demeanor or give anything away. She was clearly a professional, and Robb didn’t like their chances.

It didn’t help that they didn’t know anything about her – even her name was a mystery.

The prehistoric shifter croc, at least, they’d been able to identify as Lucas Solowij, who had been on their radar as a bit player – mainly mid-level shifter organized crime, with a few instances of doing dirty work for Hargreaves as a contractor. But nothing so serious they could pin him down for it – this was a pretty big jump up for him, attacking a member of the Agency.

He’d been at least a little more talkative than the shark woman, though he hadn’t said much of particular value. The main thing they’d been able to get from him was near confirmation that the two of them were working for Hargreaves.

He hadn’t said the words as such, but his control of his face and body language wasn’t as refined as that of the woman, and flickers in his expression at certain times had Robb pretty much convinced that he was working for Hargreaves again now.

Lucas was the one who would be easier to get intel from, but Robb was also certain that he’d only been working on a need-to-know basis as a contractor. The shark woman was clearly the one heading up the operation.

“Here.”

Robb blinked, looking away from the woman to where Callan was holding a coffee out to him.

“Thanks,” he murmured, taking the cup.

“What do you think?” Callan asked, wandering back over to the kitchenette. Robb knew that Callan was trying to distract him from his single-minded staring at the one-way mirror – but he also knew that he needed a break, and so he followed him over to the lunch table and sat down, sipping at his instant coffee.

“I think that this is going to be a protracted investigation,” Robb said, picking up a sad, soggy triangular sandwich from the table and taking a bite. He hadn’t eaten lunch, and it was getting on dinner time now. He was going to have to make do with whatever leftovers he could scrounge.

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” Callan said with a small laugh. “That lady’s going to be a tough nut to crack. The team back in Sydney are looking into her and Lucas – around their other work, of course – and they’ll let us know the moment they find anything. And Zina is going over all our data security with a fine-toothed comb.”

Robb nodded. There were a lot of people working on this case, but it was entirely necessary. The fact that someone had managed to get his number and perfectly imitate Euan’s voice in order to lure him into that alleyway in the first place was worrying, to say the least. Given that they now had near-confirmation that it was Hargreaves, the situation had escalated quickly from somewhat concerning to downright alarming.

It was, Robb supposed, inevitable that something like this would happen. The Agency mole had been none other than James Eyre, a long-time colleague and former friend of Robb’s who had been high in the chain of command, and the amount of information he would’ve passed on must’ve been staggering.

Trent’s mate Zina, a computer genius who’d once worked undercover in Hargreaves itself had supervised a complete overhaul of their security and computer systems after James had been caught, but clearly things still weren’t watertight, and Robb could slowly feel his inner – or not so inner – control freak going mad. Whether there was another mole or they’d exploited a weakness in the Agency’s data protection was anyone’s guess, but Robb intended to find out.

But right now…

Right now, he felt so wrung out with exhaustion he obviously couldn’t even remember to eat at the proper times, let alone run an effective operation.

And yet, if these people are after Tahnee, how can I trust anyone else to do it either?

Whether or not Tahnee ever spoke to him again was beside the point. They were mates, no matter what, even if she chose to keep her distance from him from now on. The only things that mattered were her safety and happiness – whether by his side or far away didn’t matter at all.